Cars, trucks, and motorized vehicles with various types of engines, such as internal combustion engines, utilize engine oil in order to lubricate their internal engine parts, such as the engine pistons and the cam shaft, to name a few. When the vehicle is operated and the engine runs, the oil is continuously circulated or pumped throughout the engine to provide lubrication to the internal parts. As the engine oil is circulated, it accumulates dirt and other contaminants which make it into the internal chambers of the engine and becomes dirty. Additionally, engine oil lubricates mechanical engine parts which often operate at substantially high temperatures. These high temperatures and the constant circulation of the oil over the hot moving engine parts, breaks the oil down and lowers it viscosity. Dirty, less viscous oil does not lubricate as well as clean, viscous oil and after a certain amount of time, the dirty, used engine oil must be replaced. An oil change in an automobile is often recommended every three thousand (3,000) miles in order to ensure proper engine performance and reduce engine wear.
Replacing engine oil has traditionally been done in one of two ways. Either the owner of the vehicle changed the oil himself or he delivered the vehicle to a garage or other service establishment to change the oil for him. Recently, an alternative service has been developed wherein a company sends a service truck or van to the location of a customer's vehicle and the operator of the van changes the oil at the location of the customer's car. Since the oil changing vehicle is mobile, a customer may have his oil changed at his home, at his place of business or any other place that he might desire. Mobile oil changing services eliminate the necessity of leaving a vehicle at a garage for a long period of time and allow the customer to avoid the often-encountered long lines at traditional drive-up oil service bays. Additionally, with a mobile oil changing service, the customer does not have to wait with the vehicle during the service, therefore allowing the customer more efficient use of his time.
Early mobile oil change vehicles were vans or trucks which essentially just delivered the operator and the necessary material, such as cans of fresh oil, to the service site. The waste oil was simply dumped into a bucket or other storage container while the individual cans of motor oil were opened and emptied into the customer's car much the same way that a person changing their own oil would operate. As may be appreciated, this was a very messy endeavor as waste oil, as well as fresh oil from the open cans, would find its way onto various surfaces inside the service van onto the hands of the operator, and often onto surfaces of the customer's car. Moreover, the large number of individual oil cans and other supplies necessary to service an adequate number of vehicles took up an moderate amount of space in the vehicle leaving little room for anything else.
Furthermore, mobile service vehicles were inefficient because the operator would often be fumbling around in the back of the crowded van in order to find the needed materials and equipment. An inefficient operator and service vehicle is undesirable because it reduces the number of customer cars that may be serviced in a day's period and therefore reduces the daily profits per service vehicle.
Drive-up oil changing services and garages also offer additional services. For example, they will replace other car fluids , such as windshield washer fluid, will offer several different kinds and/or grades of motor oil, and will replace wiper blades and air filters. Mobile oil changing services, in order to be competitive with drive-up oil changing services, also have to offer such additional services to their customers. Since all of the material and equipment for the additional services has to be immediately accessible to the operator depending upon the desires of the customer, it has become necessary for the service vehicles to carry additional oil, fluids, and equipment such as wiper blades, oil filters and air filters. As might be expected, this presents additional space constraints and clutter in an already crowded service van and additional mess for the operator to control. In turn, the efficiency of the mobile oil service is further degraded.
Another important consideration for a mobile oil service is the storage and disposal of the waste oil and the fresh oil respectively. Waste oil has a tendency to spill and to slosh around when the vehicle is moving. Further, waste oil, as well as fresh oil, is heavy, and therefore, emptying fresh oil away from one area of the vehicle while simultaneously pouring the waste oil into a container in another area of the service van, shifts the weight load of the service vehicle and degrades the operation of the vehicle. When too much oil weight is located at one side or the other of the center axis of the service vehicle, the vehicle has a tendency to tip when driven around a corner and possibly roll over if the curve is sharp enough and the weight discrepancy is substantial. For example, a gallon of oil weighs approximately 7 pounds and therefore 50 gallons of oil from servicing approximately only 50 cars weighs around 350 pounds. Safety and driving considerations therefore limited the amount of oil that could be carried by the traditional service vehicles. As a result, the number of customer cars that might be serviced in a days time by the service vehicle was reduced which reduced the efficiency and profitability of the service van. Further, with the reduced oil capacity, it is necessary to continually empty the waste oil and replenish the supply of fresh oil on a rather frequent basis to maintain continual operation of the service vehicle and prevent spillage of the waste oil from its container.
Past oil changing service vehicles have attempted to reduce the oil mess and increase the overall efficiency of the service vehicle. For example, instead of having individual oil cans and emptying waste oil into a separate unattached and uncovered container, the fresh oil was stored and taken from one tank, while the waste oil was pumped into a second tank. Additionally, these vehicles utilized hoses on reels to deliver the fresh oil and fluids to the customer vehicle and remove waste oil from that vehicle. Still further, early service vehicles had other vehicle fluids besides oil stored in tanks, such as windshield wider washer fluid, which were pumped through a hose to the customer's car. However, the early vehicles were not particularly efficient to operate, did not make efficient use of the internal vehicle space and did not adequately address the concerns of shifting fluid weight and distribution due to the changing levels of fresh oil, waste oil and other fluids. Moreover, the placement of the various tanks and necessary materials created a crowded service vehicle making it difficult for the operator to gain access to the materials and fluid needed.